Cavendish employs the elemental Galenic concepts of ice and fire to redefine previously established and accepted gender-humor allocations. And, in presenting an ice world of reason and scientific quandary, Cavendish underscores the importance of introducing female intellectual capability in male dominated scientific societies of 17th century England.

Explores the linked implications of Margaret Cavendish’s Lady Happy in The Convent of Pleasure and John Milton’s Sabrina in A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle as characters of staged feminine embodiment and the implications of their performance of subversion of and submission to the contemporary sexual economy.

This paper will investigate varying portrayals of courtship and marriage in eighteenth century caricatures and prints, illustrating how they connect to contemporary assessments of changing cultural codes and evolving notions of companionate marriage. While some speak to a budding romanticization of the domestic sphere, several prints function as anti-sentiment, portraying naively idyllic courtships followed by nightmarish depictions of wedded life.

While Samuel Richardson's novels, such as Clarissa, offer obvious reference to social conceptions and understandings of rape during the long eighteenth century, John Cleland’s Fanny Hill, the first English pornographic novel, offers a less obvious, but equally valuable look at this important social concern.